All posts by The Cognitive Itch

About The Cognitive Itch

Frequently gets lost in daydreams. And in books. An epic planner. Also an epic worrier.

Trying to accept, and trying to find grounding

Mental Health, Personal, Ritual and Belief, , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s interesting how every time I stop working on a project for a while for any reason, whether I was forced to take a break or lost interest for a bit, I feel intensely guilty about it. Which causes anxiety and then I continue avoiding it for quite some time. Possibly to drop it and pretend it never happened in the first place. I’ve rebooted this blog in a couple forms, and every time I’ve deleted all previous posts and am having to rather strongly restrain myself from doing so this time. I’m trying to let myself be ok with the discomfort, with the visibility of my lack of consistency and struggle to keep a routine. It’s truly uncomfortable though. One of those inane but impossible to drop thoughts that circles your brain while you try to fall asleep, keeping you awake with the needless anxiety it causes. I know the best way to try and come to terms with this is to tackle it head on, to try and talk myself out of worrying so excessively about it. But the simple knowledge of that has kept me from working on the blog post after the first few sentences for days now. Which is odd- usually posts like this I bang out in a half our or so. But avoidance of the uncomfortable is my main coping mechanism, and it is so easy to slip into its grasp. Consider me posting this now, with all the evidence of months of no posts, an exercise in acceptance. Acceptance of the uncomfortable, and acceptance of my own imperfections.

I’ve actually been trying to break the cycle of intense interest poured into something only to drop it forever with another project of mine. See, I’ve always been at least an agnostic. The latter half of my life, atheist. But I find myself yearning for some sort of ritual in my life. Something that grounds me, that makes me feel connected to the world around me, that affirms my thoughts on being a part of nature and the whole world around me. So I started doing some research. I thought perhaps witchcraft or other sorts of paganism would give me, if not some of the exact things I was looking for, then perhaps inspiration for what felt right. I’ve read a number of books at this point, with very much a frame of mind of taking what makes sense to me or feels good and discarding the rest. I don’t really believe in supernatural but I want to do things that feel respectful of the world around me and ground and connect me to the world. When I get lost in depression or anxiety, it often feels like I’m heading from every reminder of the world at large around me. Perhaps if I can piece together some sort of ritual for myself to connect me, I can remind myself to look outside the myopic vision depression and anxiety produce.

But it’s something I’ve only been able to research in small gulps, entirely unlike how I usually tackle research projects. And it’s been good practice as well, for trying to make a project more manageable and figure out how to keep a more prolonged interest in something. I think I’ve completed most of the reading I want to do at this point, though of course that may change later as I try things and see what feels good and what just feels wonky no matter what. I’ve settled on initially trying out things that are herb based – not because I think there are any really inherent properties to the herbs themselves. But because I do think smells and tastes and the savoring of those things can evoke feelings and frames of mind within yourself (rather than invoking some power within it, or invoking some supernatural power). I have a whole mess of teas coming in a few days. The first few weeks will simply be trying each of these and savoring the smell and taste. And deciding how each makes me feel as I savor them. Notes to be taken for future reference, of course. I hope to do this each evening outside (though living in the midwest of the usa, that may not always be possible). What I’m hoping to build here is a notebook of how these things make me feel as I consume them, and then in the future I can look at those and decide how I would like to feel and try to use the tea in that manner. Eventually I want to expand it into candles or incense as well, and then try combining things to evoke more complex feelings and states of mind. But this is what the start of creating some ritualism for me is going to look like. Savoring some tea outdoors, without any electronics, for a period of time each evening to try and quiet my mind and remind myself that I belong in the world around me. Meditation would be a truly noble goal, but I haven’t had much luck with that at this point in my life, so I will simple start with just listening to the world around me and smelling and tasting. And we’ll build from there. So I hope.

Maintaining?

Blog, Mental Health, Personal, , , , ,

One of the more difficult things I’ve been trying to tease out since my last post is how to maintain my determination and mood that I experienced that day.  I’ve seen my primary care doc since then, and one of her first questions upon me describing how I’ve felt (she put me on a new med in January) was, “Are you manic?” Which really made me dig down into the feeling a bit more, something I’ve resisted doing because one of my major stumbling blocks is my tenancy to over-analyze.

I didn’t feel like I’ve been manic. After a bit of back and forth with my doctor we decided that I was simply happy (perhaps really happy) and that it has been so long since I actually felt that way that the feeling was simply overwhelming me a bit. It seemed extreme because I’d been so low for so long. I felt fucking fabulous all last week. And now I feel like I’ve regressed a touch, so I’m trying to figure out how to pump myself back up again. I’ve been actively pushing back in my mind against my more negative thoughts and my often knee-jerk reflex to beat myself up in some manner. It sometimes makes me feel like I’m constantly arguing with myself inside my head. But even though it’s something I’ve resisted doing for a while (it sounded corny as hell to me in the past), it does seem to be helping. I find myself enjoying looking at pictures of myself again. The urge to nitpick is still there, but I find myself focusing more and more on the parts of the picture I do like.

Right now a lot of trying to pump myself up is also taking the form of really trying to figure out who I am, and who I want to be. My therapist mentioned that I often do that thing where I ‘would’ve, could’ve, should’ve’ myself to death, and while in small doses it’s not necessarily that unhealthy of a thing I get stuck in those loops and beat myself up with those thoughts. Reframing has been surprisingly helpful now that I’ve decided to try it. I’ve resisted it because it seems like it shouldn’t be that useful – I mean, it seems like I should still know what I was saying there, so why should it be that helpful. But it has been! It’s a simple thing that gets me moving forward again and breaking out of the downward spirals my brain gets stuck in. “I should’ve said this!” becomes “Next time I will say this.” Feels corny, yeah? But also been surprisingly useful. Spinning regrets into a more positive framework. “I want to be someone who walks everywhere,” which seems like a simple benign statement, has been picked apart a little and easily respun and even realized. It was also something that I think was helped greatly by my mind shift I wrote about in last post. Something about that day, moment, whatever, allowed me to go forward with less resistance. “I want to be someone who walks everywhere,” easily became, “Well, someone who walks everywhere is you know, someone who walks everywhere. So look, now I’ve decided to walk to and from my parking lot and take my dog out for twice daily walks and BAM! I am someone who walks everywhere.” It seems so simple, and yet when I was dragged down by depression and anxiety that change from the first to the second truly seemed insurmountable. And after that click, that shift, now for over a week now, I’ve been walking 3-4 miles a day when previously I didn’t even get in a 1000 steps a day oftentimes.

Saying to people that I’m lazy and like to sleep and not a morning person for so long now has been reflexive, and second nature. And yet, lazy people don’t walk 3-4 miles a day. So I don’t think that’s part of my identity at the moment (though my identity does seem to be something in flux at the moment, something shifting and evolving and still being discovered). I was texting with a friend a few nights ago, and something I said really struck me. I had mentioned how I had been waking up an hour before my alarm, and I had just been getting up and doing stuff, and I believe what I said was something about how it was weird, and I didn’t like it, and I didn’t even want to be a morning person. And I was struck that this didn’t seem to be true? I mean, it certainly used to be. Those reflexive self descriptors. But after I texted it I sat and stared and realized it didn’t ring true anymore. I WANTED to be a morning person. I was ENJOYING getting up even earlier, well before I absolutely had to. It just felt good, and I both wanted to be a morning person and seemed like I really was a morning person now (I almost fully attribute this to my new med kicking in and actually seeming to be helpful). This week, I’ve been sleeping through to my alarm, or almost, and I genuinely miss the extra time I had in the morning, and don’t enjoy how rushed I feel. So now I’m setting my alarm back a bit earlier. And I’m going to slowly push it back until I hit a time that feels RIGHT. Something I didn’t think I could trust myself to intuit before, and yet I really think I can now.

This post is a bit all over the place, but I think that’s a reflection of where I am now. I’ve burst out of the spiral and am looking around trying out all the things I wasn’t seeing before to see what fits and what doesn’t. So I’ll keep trying things on and keep plowing forward, and keep giving that fire that erupted in me some wood to fuel it. To keep it going even though it isn’t that initial furious hot burn it was those first few seductive days. I am a morning person. I am someone who walks everywhere.

What will I be next? I’m excited to find out.

 

A Swing

Blog, Mental Health, ,

I feel a little odd posting this one, after that last post. I spent a dark evening and a dark next day. Pretty meh weekend overall. But felt good this morning! Mild bit of motivation, was hopefully I may be able to grasp on to that.

But now tonight, suddenly. Something happened, or maybe a series of somethings. And I just sat there, seething, looking at the clutter around me.

What the fuck.

I am fucking better than this.

Fuck you, roping me in on this bullshit. I AM FUCKING BETTER THAN THIS.

I can be fucking better than this.

I can fucking do it.

Fuck you if you don’t think so.

Fuck you for dragging me down into this.

Fuck you for making me think I deserved nothing better than to sit in this fucking stew.

Fuck that.

I AM FUCKING BETTER THAN THIS.

And I’m gonna fucking prove it.

Not Okay

Blog, Mental Health, Personal, , , , ,

I am not okay.

Where to begin. Everything is a complicated web of dizzying bullshit within my mind. I’m trying therapy and meds again. I thought I had been doing okay, doing better. Maybe I actually was for a while. I was trying so hard this time to be watchful for my people pleasing tendencies. For my desire to be better, be happier, to delude me into playing at being better despite how I feel on the inside. I thought I was watchful. I don’t know. Maybe.

Therapy has been circling to the one issue over the last month: my craving and needing of validation, of VISIBILITY to those around me and I am friends with, and my complete and utter inability to accept it when it appears. I deny it so hard, because it sounds so utterly pathetic and vain and narcissistic and INADEQUATE in the face of all the other problems and issues that other people struggle with. I hate it and I need it. But it doesn’t matter, it is what drives me and fails me and taunts me. It is me.

Today I brought it up of my own accord. It was something that had been nagging at me for weeks now, a group of people that are feeding me precious spoonfuls of what I want and need. It should have been affirming and validating and nourishing and instead we spent an all too short hour pounding at it in therapy and I feel on the edge of a breakdown because I cannot, in my heart of hearts, accept any of it, feel like I deserve any of it.

If you haven’t experienced the crushing of feeling a depressive episode barreling towards you while you are driving to a McD’s drive-thru for food to match your mood and try to contain your tears as you pay and get your bag of sad food I don’t recommend it. Mostly because it turns out that if I contain it that long when I get home I feel unable to release it and even though it would be so utterly debasing to sob into your double cheeseburger you would feel a release. But now you are denied even that meager catharsis.

It is so utterly painful and just fucking depressing to think you finally know at least part what you need in your life and feel it is completely out of your abilities to be able to accept it. To watch what you need come at you and instead use it as a tool to tear at yourself and not know how to stop it. To know logically it was all well meaning but it’s just ripping into you instead because you don’t know how to feel worthy of it.

Everything circles back to it. My constant state of anxiety, my unhappiness with my life, my inability to muster motivation for the slightest thing. I want to be seen by those a care about, to be heard, to be appreciated, but you can’t look into your past and see when it did (it did, logically I know this, it must have) happen anymore and since you can’t see it from when it happened before you can’t see how it is supposed to work now. How can I be happy with my life when I don’t think I’m worthy of any of it. How can I reach for my dreams when I don’t know how to look at it and see when I achieved something. How can I just BE when everything must be dissected and analyzed to death.

It sounds so pathetic and small.

But it is me.

I am broken.

I am not okay.

I want to be better. I don’t know how to get there.

I will keep trying.

*because I don’t want anyone to worry who reads this: I promise I’m just depressed and angry and frustrated and needing to get it out somewhere. Nothing more. 

KonMari: I am annoyed (but probably not for the reasons you think I am)

Blog, Entertainment, Personal, , ,

Since the show on Netflix has debuted, decluttering has been the only thing people will talk about (well, besides our current state of reality in politics of course). I kind of get it – it’s something simple to grasp onto besides the growing sense of unease with current events. Just about anything can become a straw for people to grasp onto to avoid discussing certain upsetting topics ad nauseam. And this is something simple, something visible! And it brings Marie Kondo such joy to help people out in this manner. Just seeing someone enjoying something so purely feel cathartic. It is not something I have decided to view personally at this point, but I really do get the appeal.

But there is one topic that is apparently quite divisive that is annoying me to no end. I’m sure you’ve seen the quote shared about (a quote that for one, isn’t quite what she said, and two, is very much stripped of context). I am not equipped to take on the cultural milieu that her world view has grown and adapted in; but believe me when I say it exists and to please try and seek out authorities on that aspect of the issue. It’s important. But what I am equipped to discuss, is the quote if we take it as is – that one should not try to own more than 30 books. (It’s a misquote – she’s discussing how for herself, she prefers to keep less than 30 books. But like I said, we’re going to take the quote people are bandying about at face value). Why is this idea so offensive? Why have some deemed it such a moralistic judgement to get rid of books you’ve collected over the years? Why does it matter so much to you? Look, it is great to love books. I adore them. I’ve fantasized for decades about someday owning the library from Beauty and the Beast, like so many of my generation. The make me feel safe, they make me feel cozy, some of them feel like old friends.

But they also stressed me out. I have issues with depression, among other things, and I could never keep up with cleaning them. The chronically dusty shelves, with their tumbleweeds of cat and dog hair, became a source of incredible stress in my life. I’d walk by and run my hands down their spines, only to see how much I’d neglected them. Most of them, I’d never read again. They were tokens or trophies, proof I could parade about that screamed LOOK I READ THIS. I READ ALL OF THESE! And one day several years ago, I decided I couldn’t handle the weight anymore. I couldn’t deal with the upkeep of my collection when I could barely care for myself through the weight of my sadness. I couldn’t bear watching them slowly suffer from the years without being read and loved as they should. So I donated them. I kept perhaps half a dozen treasured ones, ones that if you are familiar with Marie Kondo, I could hug to me and sparked joy and made me smile. It was around three hundred all told I just packed into boxes and donated. My life felt lighter. I missed my friends, but it also brought me a lot of joy to think about them back in circulation again. Many of them are contained in other’s collections at this point, I’m sure, hopefully better cared for than they were with me. Many I hope ended up in local libraries, where they hopefully bring moments of joy to many.

I’m not here to advocate getting rid of all your books, though. Look, all self-help gurus and advice are more or less the same – someone has looked at their own life, seen that they are happier or more content than those around them, and offered up what they have done in the hopes others can get something they need from it. (there is also often a somewhat or more upfront predatory capitalistic side to those, but you don’t need me to tell you about those. Most still start from a place of just wanting to help others, no matter what it morphs into later.) And people that seek out various sets of life improving advice are unhappy with their life in someway, and desperate to fix it in some manner. I’m here to advocate an approach to this advice, that dare I say, is to apply something Marie Kondo-esque to advice itself. When you read self help, think about what is offered up to you to perhaps improve or certainly change your life. Really roll it around, think about what it entails. And if it resonates with you, then take that bit and apply it and ignore the bits you don’t like. Everyone is different. Everyone’s life is different. Where we are each trying to take our life is different. So why would every piece of advice be applicable to everyone? Take what you think sounds helpful to your individual life, and run with that. And ignore the bits that make you upset and angry – they either don’t apply to you or aren’t helpful to you.

Books are not a moralistic thing, that is to say that owning all the books or giving away books after you’ve read them is not. I love people that love books. I love the feel of libraries with all their expansive shelves of things to learn and adventures to take. I also fully understand why someone would choose to decultter their collection. Maybe you have simply outgrown some. Or they weren’t ones you necessarily appreciated but you hung onto because you spent the cash on them. Or like me, a combination of being distressed that your collection was neglected and is better served elsewhere at this point in your life. It’s ok. I promise. Just because the path someone else chose isn’t the path you would have chosen doesn’t make it bad. ❤

2019

Blog, Personal,

It turns out, I’m still not good at sticking to a long, thought out blog plan. And much like other things in my life, when I sense I’m failing at something I committed to, I avoid avoid avoid. I need to stop doing that. It’s ok for me to get overwhelmed by my ideas and plans and have to take a break from them. But I have to just admit it to myself and face it head on, instead of turtling up and hiding from it all. For ***counts on fingers*** two and a half months. Lots of room for improvement there!

In any case! I still want this to be a place where I can talk about cool things that interest me. And I still also need a place where I can talk about more personal things as well, like my struggles with remaking myself and shaping myself into someone I’m more happy and content with. So here’s to a new year, and here’s to not avoiding my shortcomings, and here’s to a journey over the next year of trying to be who I want to be, not just who my anxiety shapes me into. ❤

Halloween 2018 – It Follows

Blog, Entertainment, , , , ,

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Teenagers are such ripe pastures for horror movies. We all remember the uncertainty, the angst of being that old if we aren’t in the grips of it still. The anxiety and fear of sex trailing about us, whether we want it or are just dreading it and trying to avoid it. It’s why so many horror films are set here, and It Follows is no exception. It takes hold of this and adds the extra layer of a monster trailing after you, only you can see it, and you have all that extra added pressure laid on top of sex. The first scene sets the tone with a young woman fleeing an unseen terror, finally coming to an untimely and gristly end. The inexorableness of It that follows them around through the rest of the movie, slowly and steadily and unstoppable, promising to make their nightmares come true.

For me there’s also the added terror of trying to explain just what is wrong to your friends. It speaks of anxiety that you just can’t explain, know that it doesn’t make sense and yet it haunts you and terrifies you to your bones. And knowing how illogical it sounds and desperately hoping that your friends believe you anyway, trust what you are saying, try to help you. You see it coming for you and yet you can’t do anything about it, not really. Just try to keep ahead of it, not let it catch you while you are resting and think you are safe. Your friends watching you battle something they can’t see and can’t really understand, but trying to somehow help you anyway. I know it should be a metaphor for the slipping away of innocence, of young people passing into adulthood, and yet it speaks to my own adult anxiety and social phobia.

The atmosphere of this film is superb – the music sets a slightly discordant and nostalgic tone (reminding me of Stranger things). The eerie effect of the pool in the final showdown upon the ceiling cementing the unreality of what’s occurring. The slow tension filled building of the terror. And I enjoyed the unsettled and open nature of the ending – it’s no secret to my friends that I enjoy movies that aren’t happily ever after or insist upon spelling out exactly what occurred. Hopefully the dread doesn’t follow me to sleep tonight.

Tonight’s drink was Slice of Life by B. Nektar Meadery. Very strong lemon (not lemonade, there’s only subtle sweetness there to my sugar tolerance, if you can call it that), very little cider underneath. I would have liked a more subtle lemon flavor and a stronger ginger taste (to me, nearly nonexistent).

Halloween 2018 – Army of Darkness

Blog, Entertainment, , , , ,

army-of-darkness

This has been a favorite of my family’s for years now. It’s such a delightful mix of slapstick and deadpan humor, along side some good creepy horror elements. Technically the third in a series of movies concocted by Sam Raimi and co, though it’s unnecessary to see those movies before viewing this one. I did watch Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 before I got to this one. But either I’ve changed enough, or the times have changed enough, or some combination of those for them to be fairly unpalatable to me. But Army of Darkness so far is still enjoyable to me.

One of the best things are the special effects. In the Evil Dead movies it’s quite obvious they are on an extremely limited budget, but the deadites are just excellent. Quite frankly, not a lot of those looks change that much into this film though I know Raimi had access to quite a bit more funds. A melding of zombie and demon, and an attitude of sadistic pleasure in torturing their victims both physically and mentally are what drive the movie. I enjoy a dash of dark humor in movies such as these, and that dark humor is what keeps Army of Darkness enjoyable and the Evil Dead films less so these days. The first one in particular takes itself far too seriously for my tastes. But Army glories in that dark humor – Ash often tends to take the lazy and selfish paths and the movie punishes him for those same tendencies. The scene where he arrives at the alter to spirit away the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis is notable. The words Klaatu Barada Nikto need to be recited before removing the book from the alter, and despite his cocky fit towards the wiseman earlier of course Ash has forgotten them. And thus Ash causes an army of deadites to resurrect in his fleeing wake.

Perhaps some of my enjoyment of this film is my certainty that Ash isn’t really viewed as a hero in the movie. Sure, he’s a reluctant hero that saves the day. But he is by no means an admirable figure. My rose colored glasses of nostalgia and enjoyment of the film’s many one-liners perhaps makes me unable to view it that critically. And part of this is almost certainly informed by the recent TV show Ash vs the Evil Dead (cancelled just earlier this year), where you can abundantly see what kind of man Ash turned into.

The beer for this film was Surly’s Pentagram, an excellent dark sour. Though not as potent of a sour as last night’s Changeling, it’s still got a good punch and a dark fruity taste to go with. Big bottle and a bit pricey, but certainly worth it.

SHOP SMART.

Halloween 2018 – Dawn of the Dead

Blog, Entertainment, , , , , ,

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So, tonight was planned to be a double feature. However, due to streaming issues it turned out to only be the 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead (since I own that one). If I have time I’ll get to the other movie I wanted to watch with this later.

I don’t know why I always forget this movie is a Snyder film – it certainly has a feel that his films have. And much like his films, there’s only really a surface film here. Which is fine, if that’s what you are looking for! I find this a to be a good zombie romp, but it is by no means a deep film with any metaphorical context (contrast to last night’s Train to Busan, which had some obvious and well thought through messaging interwoven through its flesh eating action).

I tend to divide movies I don’t feel I wasted my time on into two categories – ‘good’ and ‘entertaining.’ Some movies definitely manage to hit both. This one is firmly in the entertaining camp – what lots of other people would probably refer to as a popcorn flick. The action is slick, got some nice dark comedy moments (I believe this was the film that originally got me into Richard Cheese, with the nice use of his cover of Down With The Sickness inserted over a montage). I rather enjoy the inclusion of the zombie baby, though the entire sequence of Andre tying down Luda despite her quite obviously turning into a zombie is incredibly disturbing for a variety of reasons. Please, if the zombie apocalypse ever actually comes into fruition just put me out of my damn misery.

And the intro to this movie as the world plunges towards death is superb, one of the best intro scenes I can remember – the chaos and confusion, and sense of horror is great. I remember the first time I saw this movie being highly disturbed by a scene very early on, while Ana is in her car and pulls up behind a bus. I’m not quite sure what it was – maybe the way you can’t quite see what’s going on through the translucent but not transparent glass as the zombies pin their hapless victim down, or how long the camera focuses on the poor soul’s struggles. It doesn’t have the same impact now, but the memory remains. What more can you say about it? It’s a solidly executed zombie flick, but just a surface level film. Mindless entertainment, but sometimes that’s exactly what you are looking for.

Tonight’s beer is a large bottle of Boulevard’s Changeling. Billed as a dark sour, it is definitely not lying, with a long and lingering sour punch with each sip.  A little funky underneath and a touch malty, with very light fizz. A little pricey but worth it, would absolutely buy again.

S. O. U. S. – Snails Of Unusual Size

Fauna, Invertebrates, , , , ,

I love when I encounter atypical flora and fauna in fiction. Any details, large or small, to take me out of generic pine or deciduous forest and immerse me within in your world are welcome. And I love when the, shall we say, less noble creatures appear. Cats and deer are all well and good, and I intend to cover unique species of these subtypes. But there are just soooo many other things your characters could encounter.

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“P3280594” by Scot Nelson is licensed under CC BY-SA

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